'Orchid Pagoda'. It was last year when she came here to celebrate Christmas with Su Zhinian. That night, she had been exceptionally lucky to have won a lifetime complementary card at Golden Corner at the lucky draw.
Throughout that year, she had come to have a feast at Golden Corner many times with that card, but she had never been lucky enough to get the Orchid Pagoda booth again.
The waiter had pushed the door open. The paintings on the wall, the china on the table, the rug… the decoration inside was exactly the same as the year before. Song Qingchun suddenly felt like the time had regressed. She could see Su Zhinian in his white shirt leaning gracefully against the carved red-wood chair, talking on his phone. She could even hear the lilt that was unique to his voice.
"Song Song? Why are you standing there at the door?" Qin Yinan, who had already walked in, asked softly when he saw Song Qingchun still frozen beyond the entrance.
Song Qingchun's gaze floated beyond Qin Yinan's shoulder to fall on the chair in front of the window.
"Song Song?" Qin Yinan frowned as he turned back to walk toward her.
When Qin Yinan was standing before her, Song Qingchun suddenly came to. She uttered with a blanched face, "Brother Yinan, I'm not feeling so well. Excuse me while I use the bathroom—you can make the order first."
Qin Yinan thought Song Qingchun was suffering from a fever again. He was about to reach out to touch her forehead when the girl turned around in a hurry to run toward the bathroom. Along the way, Song Qingchun ran past two waitresses and even accidentally knocked into one of them.
Even though it was Song Qingchun's fault, the waitresses still bowed deeply to apologize to Song Qingchun. "I'm so sorry."
One of them raised her head to look at Song Qingchun after she finished apologizing. Then her face lit up with recognition. "Miss Song, nice to see you again."
Song Qingchun had no recollection of this waitress. She forced a smile before turning to escape from the scene.
After Song Qingchun left, the other waitress asked the woman who greeted Song Qingchun, "You know her?"
"Of course, I do. Christmas last year, she came to have dinner with ST Empire's CEO at the Orchid Pagoda. I was their server that night."
The waitress probably thought Song Qingchun was out of earshot because she added conspiratorially, "Do you still remember about the one lifetime complementary card our shop issued last year? She's the owner of that card."
"Is that for real?" There was obvious disbelief in the waitress' voice.
"Of course, I personally handed the card to her. However, at the time, the pretext was that the card was part of the shop's Christmas lucky draw event. In actuality, that was completely untrue…"
Wait, what does she mean by that? Song Qingchun, who was around the corner, suddenly stopped moving when she heard that.
"…the real person who gave her that lifetime complementary card was not our shop but ST Empire's CEO.
"I'm not too familiar with the details, but I know that the lucky draw event was planned by ST Empire's CEO and not our promotion. I heard that ST Empire's CEO did all that to find a way to gift that lifetime complementary card to Miss Song."